Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

are suitably ambiguous."45.The Dadiani Castle in Zugdidi1907Ten years later, when he faced the guns of his pursuers, Vladimir would see the scene in hallucinatory clarity: a large,dark room with a beamed ceiling, lead-trimmed stained-glass in four arched, gothic windows through which the afternoonsun painted red, blue, and green puddles of color on the floor, heavy Burgundian furniture, a fireplace big enough to roasta calf in, the coat of arms of the Dadiani above its ledge.Across this gloomy stage a young woman of Alexandra’s age and build in a dusty riding outfit walked towards him. Tall,proud, with disheveled, dark hair and the blazing, blue eyes of the mountain people. He was spellbound and so confusedthat he invuluntarily held on to a chair.Tamara Dadeshkeliani had ridden two days from Svaneti to meet and guide them to her father’s place in the mountains.Tamara was not given to many words. George Dadiani, who next to her looked stunted with his thin, reddish hair,introduced her to his guests. Barely polite she shook hands. Vladimir stuttered when he was introduced and barelymanaged to awkwardly kiss her hand.Alexandra watched their encounter with mixed sensations. Poor Vladimir is finished, she concluded, all his worldlyaplomb has deserted him. She had heard of her younger cousin, but had never met her. Alexandra’s Dadianigrandmother had been a Dadeshkeliani and her father’s good looks were hers. Grandmother Dadiani had died early,Grandfather had remarried, a petite woman with flaming red hair, who had been the rage of Tiflis. God knows from whichRussian Jewess she had inherited her foreign looks. All her children had her blond hair and build. Cousin Tamara wasthe first fresh wind in the house.Alexandra had not visited Zugdidi since she was six. In the interim George had enlarged the house and redesigned it inthe neo-gothic style: twenty-six rooms with a number of attached bathrooms, a huge dining hall, a chapel, Gothic arches,heavy oak portals, turrets and towers, a display of the riches George had reaped from his tea plantations. By comparisonto this chateau the comfortable houses of the Chavchavadze were quaint. But, she reminded herself, her father’s and herown easy life was provided for by George’s business talent.The neat, parallel rows of the dark-green tea bushes combed the low, rolling hills at the foot of the mountains for miles.Peasant women with big baskets wandered through the plantations picking the top leaves. Their voices, and the rustlingof the bushes filled the air.Two rainy seasons and plenty of fog during the rest of the year had proven favorable for tea growing. The high mountainskept the cold wind from the Russian steppes at bay and the Black Sea held the temperature constant. It rarely froze inwinter. George had engaged a Chinese tea master, had expanded the tea acreage every year, and had built a teaprocessing plant in Zugdidi. But the quality of the final product was inferior to tea imported from China, not to mentionIndian or Ceylonese teas, which were grown in a warmer climate and at considerably higher elevation.Konrad and Uncle George had established such a good rapport, that George offered him a trip to China. He wanted tostudy Chinese tea processing with the help of his Chinese tea specialist. The trip would take three months. They wouldgo by way of the new Transsiberian railway and return by steamer from Shanghai through the Suez Canal. All expenseswould be paid.Konrad was speechless. He accepted the offer without discussing it first with Alexandra, and suggested that he wouldlearn some Chinese and study China’s history and geography. Alexandra smiled, she would be condemned to be a strawwidow for a long time!Alexandra grew bored in Zugdidi. If she had not brought the Benz, which impressed Uncle George immensely, she wouldhave taken a horse and eloped.Otto disappeared among the many children of the house. He went riding with his cousins, learned to climb trees and toswim in the millpond on the property, chased rabbits in the tea plantations and went fishing in the clear brooks comingfrom the mountains. In the evening he fell dead-tired into bed. Blissfully happy, he had finally found his castle. Alexandracould leave him in Zugdidi for the length of their expedition to Svaneti without a second thought. She knew little Sophia inElisabeth’s loving care in Tiflis.On the day of the Dahls departure Alexandra drove them to Batumi to see them off and to say good-bye to the Bredows.Unexpectedly cordial, Dahl embraced Alexandra and kissed her.143